In the continued development of sectional doors, particularly upward acting sectional doors used for residential and commercial building garages, there has been a need to develop door sections which have cooperating edges forming a substantially pinch resistant connection between the door sections. Several attempts have been made to develop a suitable edge profile between cooperating door sections to provide resistance to insertion of a person's fingers, commonly referred to as a pinchproof or pinch resistant profile. Several somewhat complicated edge profiles have been developed in an effort to provide pinch resistance from both sides of the door. However, some of the more complicated edge profiles do not lend themselves suitably to the fabrication of the door sections from rolled metal sheets or panels, which fabrication method is efficient, cost effective and thus quite popular for the fabrication of residential garage doors, in particular.
Another problem associated with the fabrication of upward acting sectional doors pertains to providing adequate door section strength and load transfer capability between sections when the door is in the closed position while at the same time providing a door which may be fabricated of various materials, including, in particular, relatively thin or lightweight metal sheet. This problem has been aggravated somewhat by prior art efforts to develop suitable pinch resistant door edge profiles and hinge combinations.
It is with a view to overcoming the problems associated with the development of lightweight, low cost sectional doors which have superior strength and superior pinch resistant capability that the present invention has been developed.